Determining and/or controlling the location of objects plays a major role in both the automation of production processes, for example by means of robots, as well as in controlling work pieces. In the context of such automated production processes using robots, for example, the position of an object is often crucial to ensure that a robot can quickly pick up the object, process it correctly and/or assemble it with other parts.
An object not having the location intended when the robot is programmed, cannot at all or only be picked up under difficult conditions requiring considerable time and technical effort. Manual intermediate processing or controlling action, in which no additional provisions for a 100 percent repositioning and/or identical placement of the objects prior to and after the manual processing or controlling step are taken, can therefore be integrated into the respective production only under difficult conditions.
Similarly, it is of considerable importance in such highly automated productions to at least at some points within the production provide check points by means of which it is ensured, for example, that an object assembled from multiple elements has all elements positioned correctly relative to the respective other elements. Such checks are today performed mainly by suitably installed video-based pattern recognition systems.
Although these pattern recognition systems function reliably, a considerable effort needs to be invested and moreover, these systems generally allow no error analysis, for example, in view of which of the multiple elements is inserted incorrectly or even missing, but they only identify whether an assembled object corresponds to the target pattern (OK) or not (FAIL).
High-frequency transceivers are known in the form of RFID-markers or RFID-tags (Radio Frequency Identification Tag). These markers or tags are already found in numerous applications, both in manufacturing, for example, for monitoring and/or controlling production processes, as well as in consumer goods retailing, for example, for tracing the flow of goods, for authenticity verification and the like.
DE 10 2007 062 843 A1 discloses a system with which the electromagnetic signals emitted by the RFID-tags are by means of suitable receiving systems with directional properties used to locate the tags and track their movement, respectively. DE 10 2006 029 122 A1 discloses determining the location of a medical instrument based on an RFID-tag attached thereto. These known systems provide little or no other relevant information beyond simple localization of the RFID-tag or tags, respectively.